During the last month or so, we have discussed my decision making process behind going through the procedure as well as the procedure itself, including the pesky 72h recovery window. Here comes the right time to discuss the results.

I do not think I ever mentioned why the 72h window is so crucial and serves as a great cut-off point to the whole recovery process with the PRK method. As I mentioned before, during the procedure my doctor scraped off the top layer of my cornea. Made it vanish. Completely. And on average it takes a person up to 72h to regrow it.

That is a true miracle of nature, I am telling you. To go from not having a part of your body to having it again in three days. I found it so funny listening to Harry Potter audiobooks as it happened and having Harry complain about how much growing his bones hurts after drinking SkeleGro. I felt your pain, mate.

That is the main perceivable difference between PRK and methods such as LASIK. My eye fully restored itself to its pretreatment state within 72h. It hurt and it took a considerable amount of time for me to go back to normal life – way longer than 72h – but my eyes were as good as new. They looked as good as new as well, since they went two or three shades lighter in the process (now that is some magic!),

With methods like LASIK there is very little pain involved and sitting in a dark room doesn’t really happen – as far as I know, for most people it is a walk-in walk-out kind of deal. But their cornea takes up to two years to heal up. That wasn’t something I was ready to live with, the idea that at any point in time a part of my eye could just flap off. Some people are brave. I am not.

After my first 72h I was still on antibiotics being dropped into my eyes 5 times a day, pills for my eye infection twice a day and hydrating eye drops at least 5 times a day (more like 20 a day, realistically). I was advised to stay home and not go back to work for two weeks. I was also warned that washing my face was a no-no for at least 7 days and contact with electronics should not exceed 4h a day until I felt a significant improvement.[Read more…]

So far we discussed the reasons I chose to undergo the treatment and the process that led me to the surgery room on the 10th of April 2017.

Let the real fun begin.

As I said previously, I was very chilled about the whole process until the day my mum made me panic. I don’t really blame her, not directly, as I did all of this to myself – but she was the one who prompted it. She kept asking me over and over again not to go along with the laser eye treatment as I may go blind because of it… So I decided to fact-check her.

Soon after I discovered that there is an approximate chance of me going legally blind of 1:5000000. A chance that noone has had the misfortune to take yet, so it is all up for grabs. I also discovered, as an aside, that being blind and being legally blind are two different things. The more you learn!

I read a great many tales of failure. People who were left with double vision for the rest of their lives. People who merely reverted back to the vision they had before. Halo effects everywhere, and being young and wide-pupiled I was a guaranteed halo (thin cornea, wide pupils… what is wrong with me). People in chronic pain. People who needed to have their treatments redone. I opened a veritable Pandora’s box filled with pure misery, and it almost drained me to bits.

I couldn’t sleep. I kept crying. You can view the progression of my madness through my post history, suddenly filled with pieces on fear and perseverance. But one thing remained certain – I was not ready to quit. No matter how horribly stressed I was, no matter how sleep deprived, I was determined to go for it.[Read more…]

I still remember the day I was to pick up my first pair of glasses. I was so excited. A bit like a small kid going to school for the first time. And like a small kid I soon realized that everything I was so keen about, well, wasn’t quite as peachy as people were making it seem.

I cannot even grasp what it was that I adored about the idea of wearing glasses. Maybe the fact they looked cute? Mind you, it was around the time that I also picked a school because they enforced wearing ties in their uniform… Fashion sense was not exactly my BFF back then. I’d wear my standard polo and blazer, and tie, and then my bright red Converses. Unfortunately, that is not a joke.

Not that glasses cannot be cute. They very much can. There are people who look great in a pair, and, well, perhaps I am just not one of them. Besides there are many many reasons one should wear glasses – and looking good is not one of them. Did I need a pair? Possibly. Did I need them that early, when my eyesight was only around -0.25? Possibly not, although who am I to judge, without any degree in medicine or the equivalent.

After the novelty wore off, before I realized what I truly signed myself up for, I was stuck. Literally stuck, as the thought of using contact lenses remains my worst nightmare to this day. I am extremely protective of my eyes. Like super duper protective. Putting stuff in them? Isn’t going to happen.

And that is how my journey to the glasses-free me of today started.[Read more…]